Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me to Close on Broadway 1/7

Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me has announced a January 7, 2007, closing date. The show began previews on July 29 and opened on August 17 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre and will have played 22 previews and 165 regular performances upon closing. Including the three pre-Broadway engagements at San Francisco's Curran Theatre, Toronto's Canon Theatre and the LaSalle Bank Theatre in Chicago, the show will have played more than 250 performances.

Though its title suggests a one-man show, Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me is more a musical-comedy parody of the celebrity confessional. It includes a cast of four supporting actors Brooks Ashmanskas, Mary Birdsong, Capathia Jenkins and Donna Vivino plus composer Marc Shaiman, who accompanies Short in musical numbers and appears in a skit skewering Short's Canadian family. The show features a script by Short and Daniel Goldfarb with additional material by Alan Zweibel, music by Shaiman, lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Wittman, and direction by Wittman.

For the past three weeks including Broadway's record-setting Thanksgiving week, Fame Becomes Me has played to houses ranging from 64% to 71% of capacity. Recently, the production had been announcing in advance the identity of celebrity guests who are called onstage at each performance for a talk-show segment with Short as Jiminy Glick. Guests ranged from Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn to Jerry Seinfeld and Jerry Springer.

In a statement, producer Scott Zeiger said, "There is no harder working star than Martin Short. He has given himself tirelessly and brilliantly to this project for over a year, and played eights shows a week for more than 250 performances with no understudy and no break, unheard of in a musical role of this magnitude. We're proud to be able to go out on top, having played only profitable weeks on Broadway, and allow Marty time to shoot The Spiderwick Chronicles prior to beginning rehearsals for our national tour."

The producers announced that Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me will launch a 35-week national tour in 2007, with dates and itinerary to announced shortly. The original cast album will be released in mid-February on Ghostlight Records.